My design challenge was to make a creative ad for a common, non-interesting household item. I made advertisements for an everyday toilet plunger, not necessarily the most exciting product but one most people use. The targeted audience of these ads were 25 to 34 year old males who are married, have a Bachelor’s Degree, and whose media consumption is blogs and social media. This design appeals to the target audience through humor.

There were several main design decisions that were made once a product was chosen. I spent a lot of time brainstorming, trying to figure out something that wasn’t too literal. Going through my sketches and mind mapping, I was really drawn to a tag phrase about being stuck. That in and of itself lends itself well to humor. I chose a car that had both crashed and was stuck in the mud. I used Photoshop to blend the photos of the motorcycle mud splash, the car crashed in the corn field and the red plunger.

In my design, I was to choose a company that sells toilet plungers. You would be surprised how hard it is to find a brand for this product that isn’t obscure. I was finally able to come up with Mr. Clean after a serendipitous walk through the grocery store. I chose a sans serif font to keep it simple and not to compete with the rest of the ad.

The design principle of rules of thirds were used in the layouts. The edge of the car crashed photos take up two-thirds of the advertisement. Mr. Clean lies on that same line and the imaginary line for the bottom one-third of the ad. Colors were originally all neutrals, but I added in pops of blue, teal, and a little red/red-orange. I used left alignment in my two text boxes. The handle of the blue plunger aligns vertically with the end of the word “mess” in the first text box and horizontally with the top of the red plunger’s handle.

The advertisements for Facebook and blogs have similar formatting but had to be rearranged for different pixel sizes.

Color

The next design decision that I made was to choose a color palette. I stuck with the neutral earthy tones of black, white, brown, olive green and gray. I added in a medium blue, teal, and reddish orange for visual contrast. The Mr. Clean logo helps to brighten up the advertisements and create a strong visual contrast to the car stuck in the mud.

Repetition of the three dominant colors of brown, green and blue can be found on both advertisements. The color red, albeit different shades were repeated in both the plunger and the Mr. Clean logo. The blue on the plunger is the same blue outline that I found on the logo. The color white was repeated with the car, Mr. Clean’s shirt and the second text box. Using this repetition kept the advertisements cohesive.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this blog post has discussed the design principles of visual contrast, alignment, colors, and the use of color for visual interest and cohesion. Repetition has been used through color and objects. Humor has been used to appeal to the target audience.